


First Loves and Beats

by HopeS_park



Category: Given (Manga)
Genre: F/M, M/M, and time switches, i wrote my own prequel, prepare for haruki feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 18:29:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21286208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeS_park/pseuds/HopeS_park
Summary: "For as long as I can remember, there's always been music in my life.My life had always been rather fun. Compared to other people's lives, it had always been easy and comfortable.So why did I always feel like I was lacking something? Why did I feel like this world would be a lot better off without me?"
Relationships: Kaji Akihiko/Nakayama Haruki, Nakayama Haruki/OC
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	First Loves and Beats

For as long as I can remember, there's always been music in my life. 

Whether it was the drums I played in kindergarten, with their deep voices and enchanting rhythms. A single beat thrummed through that small body of mine and left me breathless. 

Or whether it was the assortment of classical instruments I tried all throughout primary school. The first time I touched a clarinet, I felt so silly, because I had never even seen such an instrument. Nevertheless, I found its sound soothing - reassuring, even. 

My first love with the clarinet did not last long and I tried the piano next. The cello after that, before I saw a woman on TV playing the recorder so beautifully. 

I have no real recollection of why I decided to stop playing the recorder, other than my aunt saying it was noisy. Maybe it shook me a lot more when I was younger. 

My being enamored to classical instruments was doomed to failure and I think it should have been stored away in a box, together with my recorder flute. 

But I gave it one last try. 

Playing the violin, I found, was not just difficult, but tiring and exhausting. 

Learning to play the violin is like learning to live a completely new life. You take your baby steps and you stumble and fall. It is on you whether you get back up again. 

That's what it felt like to play the first few notes. They sounded crooked and distorted and I couldn't fathom how anyone would be able to elicit a beautiful melody from this instrument. 

I think my aunt liked the violin a lot better than the recorder. For my twelfth birthday she got me tickets to a violin concert and I was so excited. 

We sat somewhere in the middle of the audience and I had a clear view of the stage. When the violinist stepped onto stage, it felt like the world around us turned mute. 

Never before had I heard such beautiful music. I was deeply moved, but there was something gnawing at me. A feeling I couldn't pinpoint until the concert was over. 

It was on our drive back home, when my aunt looked into the rearview-mirror and said simply, "Haruki, what's wrong? You're crying." 

And I realized why I was crying. It was because even though the music was so breathtaking and enchanting, it was terribly devastating. 

The violinist had been surrounded by an entire orchestra. And still he seemed like the most lonely human being on this planet. 

After that, I turned away from all things classical. I started listening to the music most of my classmates were listening to, which turned out to be mostly J-pop, with your occasional American songs thrown in. 

The girls in my class were more than happy to share their interests in solo artists and bands with me. 

And over time, I forgot all about that world in which music did not need words to bring any meaning across. 

I joined the band at my school and taught myself how to play the bass. Although I found it boring and almost non-challenging at first, I grew to like it. 

And when our vocalist called in sick, only two days before our first concert, I took a chance. 

With enough practice, the right music style and good lyrics, I think everyone can sing. So I didn't find my skills as surprising as the other members did. 

I just sang. It wasn't like I was trying to become the next "Empress of J-pop", I was just trying to finish a concert. 

We had a good, but not a long time. Our band split up shortly before the final exams and we didn't get back together. Everyone was dealing with their own lives, working towards their own dreams. 

I sometimes felt ashamed, because I lacked thereof. A dream, I mean. 

Whenever people asked me what I wanted to do with life, I didn't answer much more than, "Have a job, I guess." 

One evening, after I came back home, tired from a bass lesson, my father looked across the table at me and said, "If you are not serious about music, you might as well stop now." 

I don't remember what happened afterwards. I think I screamed, but I definitely had an argument with my father. 

It wasn't that I am not passionate about music. I always have been, though maybe more so back in the day than now. But I knew from friends, from books, from the people on TV that you couldn't make a living with playing in a band. 

I felt like I just had to have a second option, a Plan B, so to say. That was why I poured all my efforts into the middle school finals, making sure I could attend the senior high school of my dreams. 

Said school wasn't, like most of my friends and family had expected, a school focused on music, but on literature, art and social studies. Nobody wanted to believe me that reading poetry and deducing people's personalities was the ace up my sleeve. 

To me, it was no surprise that I continued playing bass while studying for the application to a liberal arts university. 

I played in a band all throughout senior high and joined a new one when I moved to Tokyo to attend university. 

My life had always been rather fun. Compared to other people's lives, it had always been easy and comfortable. 

So why did I always feel like I was lacking something? Why did I feel like this world would be a lot better off without me?

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my very first Given fanfic! °-^  
I kinda hope it will cure my long-term writer's block, but who knows? 
> 
> Think of this as a character study or I don't know. I just really fell in love with the ship Akihiko/Haruki and then I totally fell for Haruki and then this fanfic happened. It will be a Haruki-centered fic, but my writing is way too self-indulgent to not occasionally fall for the obvious ship trap.
> 
> Leave a comment down below (in case you feel like staying around ;))!
> 
> See ya <3


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